


After the Storm

by Coppercurls



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Don't you worry, Found Family, Gen, implied child neglect, our lovable protagonists are here, she's young and she's had it hard, there's a new wizard, trans kit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coppercurls/pseuds/Coppercurls
Summary: “Swale-Romeo household, Carl speaking.”“Hey Carl, it’s Leah.”“What’s up?”She sighed. “I had a girl show up in my kitchen about an hour ago, toting her little brother. She was exhausted, but I learned that she’s immediately post ordeal, and that she has an incredibly strong visionary talent. I’ve got both her and her brother asleep now but…”She trailed off, and Carl let a brief silence ensue before breaking it. “What’s the emergency?”“The girl, she said she and her brother can’t live with their parents anymore, something about them surely dying if they do.”~Or, how Harry Callahan's family only grows
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 35





	After the Storm

It had been a surprisingly calm morning, and if there was one thing Carl Romeo didn’t trust it was calmness, for any length of time.

He mentally ran through his constantly updating list of responsibilities that needed attention as soon as possible. Tom was walking the dogs, and he had done the dishes before Carl got home from work. He had a Marzetti in the oven cooking, the table was set. All mundane tasks were accounted for. 

Carl went to sit on the back porch, it was early in the spring, so the chill hung in the air and the sun was setting already. He flipped idly through his manual, wondering if he had enough time to look into the Andean issue Irina sent his way. He then saw the initial precis was ten pages without even getting to previous failed interventions. Carl flipped past that section, deciding to peruse Darryl McAllister’s most recent project, as Darryl had requested some non-urgent feedback. 

A few minutes later, the phone rang. Thank the One, it was much too quiet. 

He walked inside, leaving the sliding glass door open to let in the fresh air. He set his manual on the table in front of him as he slouched into the closest chair, then held his hand out for the phone. The cord was just barely long enough to reach him. He added that to his mental list.

“Swale-Romeo household, Carl speaking.”

“Hey Carl, it’s Leah.” Her voice was familiar, a young woman with a soft Canadian accent. She’d been an advisee of his and Tom’s since her rather late set ordeal, ten years ago when she was sixteen. She’d recently become an Advisory wizard herself, something that made Carl feel both proud and old.

“Leah! Aren’t you emergency only right now?”

“Yeah,” she sounded tired. “And it is an emergency, enough to veto my doctoral leave.”

“What’s up?” Carl’s voice fell into the more serious tone he used in tense situations.

She sighed. “I had a girl show up in my kitchen about an hour ago, toting her little brother. She was exhausted, but I learned that she’s immediately post ordeal, and that she has an incredibly strong visionary talent. I’ve got both her and her brother asleep now but…”

She trailed off, and Carl let a brief silence ensue before breaking it. “What’s the emergency?”

“The girl, she said she and her brother can’t live with their parents anymore, something about them surely dying if they do.”

A few words slipped out of Carl’s mouth, words he’d never want to say in the speech. “We’ll need to find a home for them then, preferably with someone who knows about wizardry.”

“My thoughts exactly. I was hoping you and Tom could take them in? Or know someone who would?”

“I can make a few calls, see what I can find. Do you want me to come pick them up?”

“They just fell asleep, I can watch them until morning. What time would one of you be able to come by?”

“If I call off work, I can be up as early as seven. Tom has meetings all day tomorrow. Does that work?”

“That would be perfect, I’ll try to get them fed, and I’ll see if the manual has any info that can help.” He could hear her take a steadying breath, but her voice cracked through the next sentence anyways. “Carl, she’s six. Her brother can’t be more than three. Why would the Powers…”

Carl took a sharp breath. That was so young. The youngest he’d encountered in his career. “She must be needed.” He paused. “She survived her ordeal, that’s the hardest part.”

“Yeah,” Leah said, but she wasn’t satisfied with that answer. Neither was he.

“Are you sure you don’t want one of us to come up tonight? Just to help out?”

“No, I’ll be fine, I have to have my thesis all-but-finalized by Monday, so I was planning on being awake anyways. See you in the morning?”

“See you then.”

Carl stood to return the phone to the receiver. The extra motion gave him the slightest reprieve from the exhaustion he felt building behind his eyes. 

Before then, the youngest wizard he’d worked with had been seven, she’d come for advice before her ordeal. Tom had largely been the one to work with her, she needed help designing a geomancy spell for a potential disaster in Yellowstone. He’d made dinner for her before she left. He thinks they may have been the last people to ever see her, she burnt out while knitting together faults that fought back. She stopped the catastrophe and it cost her life.

It was a more common occurrence than he liked to think about most days.

He checked the Marzetti and poured himself a drink stronger than normal. 

~

He left the house the next morning after two cups of coffee and a quick kiss from Tom. He set his gate in the part of the backyard that typically functioned as a transit spot, and then he vanished.

He reappeared in Leah’s closet, which had been repurposed as a transit zone in order to better accommodate her wizardly guests. He stepped out, straightening his shirt as he did so. He had to walk through the living room to get to her kitchen, where he heard someone moving around. As he walked through, he saw a small form completely buried in a blanket on the couch, only long hair peeking out. 

The kitchen was lit, and Leah was humming to herself while she stood at the stove. A little boy was standing on one of the kitchen chairs, drinking what looked to be orange juice out of what looked to be an adult sized sippy cup. 

“Good morning,” he said, still toning his voice low so it wouldn’t carry into the next room. 

Leah turned, smiling tightly at Carl when she saw him. “Dai. Have you had breakfast?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about me. I’d take coffee if you have it though.”

Carl looked back to the boy. He really did not know anything about children that young. Did they talk? Probably. Maybe? He decided they most likely did, so he sat at the table and introduced himself in the Speech, so the boy would understand him even if he didn’t speak English.

“Hi, I’m Carl. What’s your name?”

The boy smiled at him, a toothy smile on his round face. He looked like some of the Inuit wizards Carl had worked with before. “I’m Bastien, I’m three and a half years old. How old are you, Monsieur Carl?” he said in Quebecois. 

“I’m thirty-nine.”

“Ayoye! You’re old.” 

“I am not, you’re just young.”

Bastien looked skeptical, but he nodded. “What’s your favorite color?”

You can’t lie in the speech, so Carl had to think. “Probably blue, like the ocean.”

“I like blue too! Like my shirt.” 

Carl and Bastien kept chatting until Leah brought over two plates of eggs and toast for her and Bastien, coffee for Carl.

“Thank you, Madame Leah.”

Bastien kept chattering away—at both of them now—asking an almost constant stream of questions, only occasionally pausing for answers.

“Why do you both sound funny?” He asked at one point.

Leah and Carl exchanged a quick glance. It was so rare for non-wizards—on a sevarfrith planet especially— to hear the speech as something other than their native languages. He was young though, which might explain it.

Leah didn’t say anything, so Carl took point. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Bastien tilted his head to the side, a furrowed and concentrated look on his face. “Matty said Ma and Pere would be hurt if we stayed. Matty is smart, so I said okay. She was gone for a while, but she came back like she promised.”

“Is Matty your sister?” 

“Yes, she’s still asleep. We should wake her up.”

“I think she’s pretty tired, so she might need to sleep more,” Leah said. “When she wakes up though, you’re going to go home with Mr. Carl. He and his partner are going to take care of you for a while.”

“Okay! Do you know where my toys are?”

“Let’s check the bag your sister brought.”

Leah followed as Bastien ran out into the living room. Carl cleared the dishes away before sitting back down with his coffee and retrieving his manual from his otherspace pocket.

Carl opened his manual to the messaging functions, and Leah and Bastien came back to the kitchen to sit on the floor playing with the race cars they had retrieved.

He flipped through to find the page dedicated to his communications with Irina.

C: My consultation for the Andes working may take longer than anticipated, I’ve had an odd situation pop up in Tom and I’s jurisdiction.

I: Not a problem, that case is not immediately urgent. Does your situation require assistance?

C: I have it handled for now. A girl immediately post-ordeal and her brother need relocated, I’ll keep you updated.

Irina’s response was a word in the Speech equivalent to a thumbs up. Carl flipped to the pages listing early latency wizards to find this girl, before he realized Matty was likely not her given name.

“Leah?” She looked over at him. “Do you know her full name.”

“It’s Mathilde de Berre, do you want me to forward you the information I’ve found?”

“No thanks, I’ve got it.” He’d have access to more information anyways.

Leah hummed in response, and he heard Bastien ask her what songs she knew before Carl started to read. A background of nursery rhymes and childhood songs started up, two voices with two accents not quite in tune.

Mathilde de Berre had taken her oath two months prior and immediately began showing the aptitude of a visionary. Before her ordeal, she used that to divert fatal accidents around her town, including a storm that had the potential to spark a wildfire, despite the season, that would have destroyed the wildlife reserve near her town.

Her ordeal involved an involuntary timeslide as a result of working with that storm. Some part of her essence was tied into the spirit of the storm, and she was pulled into the future. Carl wasn’t given in depth information of that, due to the subject of the future being strictly confidential. But he did see that she averted another storm, one spawned from the one she stopped in the present day. 

The manual indicated that these events had left her exhausted, and she was pulled awry again. Carl didn’t have an in depth understanding of aeromancy, but from what he understood, Mathilde had been tied into the heart of that storm spirit and it pulled her further into the past when she tried to go back, rather than releasing her. She was tied into Hurricane Katrina, the La Nina cycle that fed it, to all its side effects globally. She couldn’t stop the destruction that fed off her power for that indeterminate time she was being used, she seemed to be lost in a time-void within that storm’s soul, which is where she met the Lone Power.

Most of the information of that interaction was redacted due to confidentiality, but he could see that she managed to rip herself free from feeding into entropy, reclaim her energy to deplete the storm, and return to her own time and home, eleven days after she had last been seen.

During her recovery period, she had fallen unconscious for just over two days, and the manual recorded 37 visions she experienced during that time. Carl skimmed over them. The manual wasn’t reliable when it came to recording visions and predictions, it too often missed context that required sentience to interpret. 

When she woke up, she immediately packed a bag and brought herself and her brother to Leah’s, who was the closest Advisory. 

He shut his manual and sat back with a sigh. His hands felt fragile around the mug he held.

By his most conservative estimations, Mathilde had mentally aged two years during her ordeal. Though he specialized in time, time-voids were unpredictable and each interaction between a wizard and one was completely unique. Carl would bet she’d actually experienced four or five years while trapped in that storm. Maybe more.

He could crunch the numbers the next time he had a few hours of free time. 

He felt so heavy he almost thought gravity had changed its affect. 

A yawn came from the doorway of the kitchen and all three of the room’s occupants looked to see the girl entering. She looked so much like her brother, but even with the light of life in her eyes, she looked exhausted. Her face bore no hint of a smile, just a somber calm.

“Matty!” Bastien screamed, and he threw himself at her for a hug. Her lips turned up, just slightly, as she hugged him back.

Mathilde was far too old for her body. 

She sat at the table next to Carl.

“Are you hungry kiddo?” Leah asked, already turning the stove on.

“Yes, please,” she said. “Could I have water too?”

“Of course.”

Leah got to work, and Mathilde looked at Carl, her eyes so full of life, the eyes of the child of a storm. 

“You’re one of the people who will help us.”

Carl nodded. “I’m planning on taking you and your brother with me when I leave, to stay with me and my partner while we try to find a more permanent solution, or until it’s beneficial for you to return to your parents. As long as that’s alright with you, of course.”

Mathilde looked at him. “Yes.”

~

Carl teleported with the kids home by noon, leaving Leah to get back to her thesis. He got Mathilde and Bastien set up in the guest room, noting as he unpacked that they would need more clothes and other essentials soon. He’d ask Tom to take care of that tomorrow, he’d have to be back at work. 

After that he made them all lunch, a salad and cold cut sandwiches. Carl did not interact with children this age much, he had no Idea what to feed them, or what they needed.

One more thing for him to research. 

Bastien bonded with Annie and Monty right away, and after lunch he ran outside with them, playing fetch and tug-of-war and laughing all the while.

Carl sat on the patio with Mathilde. She seemed content to be left to her own devices, so he opened his manual to update Irina, and maybe read more on calculating differentials in time voids.

C: I have the kids at my place now, I’ve looked over Mathilde’s ordeal precis, but I’ll have to ask about her visions before I’m certain on how to proceed. 

I: Mathilde de Berre? She’s been tagged for me to meet with, her visionary talent is incredible and the Powers want it monitored through her early development. Could I come by at 2456415.9375?

C: I have work but Tom will be with the kids. I’ll let him know.

I: Thank you as always. Dai.

C: Dai.

Carl slid away his manual for a moment, watching Bastien tumble through a tug-of-war loss with Monty. He was less surprised than he should have been when the boy began to hold conversations with the dogs, still in Quebecois but all parties were understood nevertheless. 

When he looked at Mathilde her eyes were slightly unfocused. It looked like the way some wizards received manual knowledge, but he thought almost every North American wizard had a physical form of the knowledge.

He didn’t want to interrupt her, but after he’d only been looking at her a moment, her eyes shifted to meet his.

“You have a question?”

Carl smiled wryly at that certainty in her voice. It was unsettling to be that anticipated by a wizard he had just met. “Yes, I didn’t mean to disturb you though.”

“No bother.” Mathilde sounded too old still. Carl wondered if they would be able to return to her her youth.

“How do you access wizardly data?”

“The oath was given to me in a book I found on the street one day, and I used that as my manual for a while. In the storm, though, I had to learn to hear the Wind, to respond to it, before I was lost. I still have the book, though I think I prefer the Wind.”

“That’s very brave of you.”

“It needed done. I did it.” She paused. “I think I’m closer to life now.”

“That’s what the art is. Life.”

“Yes.”

They sat in the quiet for a while, then Carl got up to play with the dogs and Bastien. When the boy started yawning, though, Carl remembered that kids needed naps.

He settled both of them in the bed of the guest room, ignoring Bastien’s protests and Mathilde’s knowing eyes. He left before they fell asleep, returning to the living room, thinking about watching tv. He drifted off on the couch before he even turned it on.

~

He only woke up when Tom got home. Tom shook him gently awake, but the moment he had a sliver of consciousness, he sat bolt upright, nearly giving Tom a bloody nose. 

“The kids!” he whispered fiercely, springing to his feet. 

Before he could rush from the room, his partner put a hand on his chest, stopping him. “They’re fine, Carl. They’re in the kitchen working on one of our puzzles they found on the shelf. Mathilde made them a snack.” Tom sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Some canned soup. She’s used a stove before, I think she did a lot of caretaking for her brother, even before becoming a wizard.”

Carl felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “Tom, what are we going to do? We’re both too busy to be full time parents, and I get the feeling that they can’t go back to their parents, likely ever.”

“We’ll figure it out. Have you talked to Irina?” Tom led him into the kitchen. They sat down next to Mathilde and Bastien.

They’d always had a policy of treating the kids they worked with respectfully, no talking about them like they weren’t there, no babying them. If a child had been offered wizardry the Powers thought they were old enough to deal with that responsibility, and though especially for the younger ones adult wizards were needed to guide them, they could be trusted to help make decisions about their life.

Carl absently began to help with the puzzle. “Yeah, she’s planning on coming by tomorrow around ten thirty. You’re going to be around here the next few days?”

“I was supposed to get coffee with my agent, but that can be rescheduled, this qualifies as a family emergency.”

“That works out well then, once we talk with Irina we’ll have a game plan.”

“Who’s Irina?” Bastien asked, staring at the Seniors with wide eyes.

“She’s a wizard, like us and your sister. She’s the one in charge of the whole planet,” Tom said. 

“She’s very powerful,” Mathilde said with a smile. “There are a lot of possibilities around her.”

“She’s very busy,” Carl said with a nod. He was beginning to get used to Mathilde’s calm assuredness. It wasn’t so offsetting as before.

“Wait,” Bastien said, loud. “You’re wizards? Matty’s a wizard!?!”

Mathilde laughed, a light sound Carl hadn’t been expecting. “Oui, it’s why I was gone.”

“What were you doing?”

“I had to talk to a few storms. It took longer than I expected.”

Bastien nodded, and Carl noticed he was now standing on his chair. “Can I be a wizard?”

“Maybe,” Tom said. Carl smiled. Tom was always so much better with the younger kids they worked with. “If the Powers need you, you’ll be offered wizardry. It normally doesn’t happen until you’re twelve though.”

“Okay.” Bastien looked thoughtful for a moment. “Can I go outside and play with Annie and Monty now?”

“Yeah, I’ll come outside and sit with you,” Carl said, slipping into the living room to grab a light jacket and his manual before setting up on the porch. 

~

It took half the night and a boatload of research, but by a quarter after one Carl had a much more concrete estimation of how long Mathilde had spent within the storm. How much she had aged in the time-void while the storm fed on her power. 

He stared at the number. He had checked his math again and again.

Eight years, seven months, thirteen days.

She had lived, in some execution of time, for over fifteen years.

Carl flipped through his manual to the pages that stored the group correspondence between him, Tom, and Irina, giving them access to his equations and sources, as well as stating his findings in a more direct message.

It felt so messy. The only reason they hadn’t been alerted to such a prolonged ordeal was because, from their end of time, she’d only been gone eleven days. 

It felt like they’d failed her. More than half her life had been as a storm.

Mathilde didn’t have the lived experience of a fifteen-year-old human girl but going forward they couldn’t discount the ways she had aged. He felt a headache coming on. He went to find the aspirin before turning in for the night.

~

Irina Mladen, the Planetary wizard for Earth, arrived at the Swale-Romeo household at ten forty-three local time. She had left her son at home, she thought the situation at hand was complex enough without introducing another toddler. She would have to bring him sometime, though, she was worried he wasn’t getting enough time socializing with kids his age.

Annie and Monty were playing fetch with a small boy, who looked to be Native American, and was running along with them as much as he could. Tom was sitting on the patio, drinking from a mug from an adirondack chair. 

“Dai stiho,” he said, smiling at her.

She smiled back and returned the greeting as she sat in the matching chair next to him. “Is Mathilde here?”

“Yes, she’s just upstairs. A moment ago she said you were close and she should get her physical manifestation of the manual.” Tom took a sip of his coffee. “Irina, she’s a strong visionary. Strongest I’ve seen.”

“That’s why I was flagged to meet her. Not only is that talent going to be incredibly helpful, it will bring her unwanted attention.” Irina summoned her manual and flipped to the information she was given about Mathilde.

“I’ve been neglecting my manners; can I grab you a drink?” Tom was already standing, so Irina assumed it wouldn’t be an imposition.

“Please, do you have mineral water?”

“Coming right up.” He brought his mug with him, presumably for a refill.

Before Tom came back, a young girl came out of the house with a water stained, leather bound book. She looked remarkably like her brother, but leaner, more sun streaks in her hair. Irina wondered quietly if it was just loss of baby fat or if becoming a storm malnourished her. Irina didn’t know of any precedent of a human acting as an elemental force for that long. She’d have to read up. 

“Hello,” Irina said. “Well met on the common journey.”

Mathilde smiled, but her eyes flicked around like they were tracking something unseen. “Well met,” she said. “I’m Mathilde.”

Irina smiled in return. She couldn’t stop thinking how this girl was so powerful, so knowing. “I’m Irina.”

“Yes.”

“I have a few questions for you, is that alright?” She hated feeling like she was treating a fellow wizard with kid gloves, she didn’t typically have time to coddle. 

“Of course, we need to figure out where Bastien and I should go.”

“That’s part of it, yes.” Irina knew what Carl meant now, how unsettling her certainty could be, how she was so much older behind her eyes. Fifteen. She hadn’t checked his figures yet, but she had a feeling he was correct. He was the leading human expert in that field.

Mathilde just kept looking at her, expression unchanging, so Irina continued, nodding at Tom in thanks when he gave her the mineral water. “I’ve been told you have a visionary talent; how do you experience that?”

She opened her mouth before closing it again, her brow furrowing slightly. “I haven’t really thought of it. It’s like… when I learned to speak to the Wind. But I can’t talk back, ask for more. I see images and feelings, know numbers. Feel paths, there are so many paths. Some are more certain than others. A lot of them are about Bastien. It’s… probabilities, statistics. For big things, future things, it’ll be an image and I’ll know the numbers. Like… there’s a 68% chance me and Bastien will be smiling and genuinely happy on January 11th, 2016 if we live with a florist, a 53% chance of the same thing if we’re somewhere in Southwest United States. If things are happening soon, it’s easier to see, but since I woke up after getting home, I haven’t been having as many true visions. More just… good or bad reactions when something happens. Feelings.”

“Like when you met Carl,” Tom said. “You told him he was going to help you.”

“Yes, you will too. I saw your faces a lot in the most likely future.”

Tom hummed. Irina waited for him to say something, but after a silence she spoke. “Can you start keeping a journal of your visions? The manual isn’t always good with that type of thing.” Mathilde nodded and Irina continued. “Tom said you knew I was coming right when I appeared. What was that like?”

“It was an immediate thing, with a lot of power. If something is both immediate and powerful and directly related to me, I can normally get a reading on it as well. There was a 97% chance you’d arrive in the next minute when I went to get my manual.”

Irina cocked her head. “Have you done much reading into visionary information?”

“No.” Mathilde looked grim. “At first, things kept happening that I wanted to stop, then there was the Storm.”

Irina could practically feel the importance of that word. She weighed what she should ask next. She was curious about the storm, but she knew she couldn’t stay much longer, and she was there about the visionary talent. “Are there not as many visions of things you want to stop now?”

“There’s so many. There’s always so many potential disasters.” Mathilde set her jaw. “But there’s a higher chance of doing good in the future if I get me and Bastien safe first.”

“That was a good decision,” Tom said. “Sometimes being safe will help people more.”

Irina knew that Tom had been getting the same reading of this girl’s personality, that she had a leaning towards self-sacrifice, even when unnecessary. 

“Okay,” Irina said, when it became apparent Mathilde wasn’t going to speak. “Your way of experiencing visions isn’t very common, so I’d like it if you can send me weekly transcriptions of your visions.”

“Of course,” Mathilde said.

“And,” she considered how to phrase her next request, “I need you to promise not to act immediately on any vision you see that is not directly related to your sphere of life, to where you live, to what projects and errantries you’re on.” Mathilde opened her mouth to argue. “No, I need your promise. You’re powerful, you’re young, you’re smart. But it isn’t your job to divert every potential disaster on the planet. That’s my job.”

[And you’ll burn out too quickly if you do], Irina thought, but she didn’t allow herself to say it. She’d seen it happen all too often.

Mathilde stared at her, a small frown on her face, staying stubbornly silent as if she could outlast Irina. But she sighed a moment later. “I promise,” she said, reluctantly. 

“Thank you.”

“Can I go talk to the fish now?” Mathilde said, for the first time losing that slight ethereal aura she held.

“Go ahead,” Tom said.

The two adults sat in silence a moment, and Irina watched Bastien try to ride Annie, and Mathilde sit on the stones next to the pond.

“I have a few people I think they’d be good with,” Tom said.

“Harry?” 

“Of course, that’s my first choice.”

“Good. I’ve been thinking of recommending Nita, and maybe Kit too, to be promoted to Advisory. It’d be good to see Nita be a mentor to Mathilde with her visionary talents.”

“Good thinking. Me or Carl will go by tonight, talk to him about it.”

“Let me know what he says, we can figure things out from there.” Irina sighed and rose to her feet. “I’m afraid I need to get going, Eyhssu needs a consultation on the Mariana’s Trench debacle, and I’m concerned with some of the potential side effects of his proposed intervention.”

Tom smiled and stood as well to see her off. “Good luck, and try to bring Sasha by sometime, maybe put your feet up for a minute or two.”

Irina laughed. “I wish. Good luck with Harry tonight.”

“Thanks. Dai.”

And she walked to the corner of the yard and vanished.

~

Since his eldest daughter had told him she’d been spending more of the family vacation as a whale than as a human, Harry Callahan thought he’d become a lot more comfortable with wizardry. So much that, since he’d housed alien exchange students, his modest house had become a rest stop for any wizard who needed a place, for however long.

The constant rotation of guests was almost a relief for Harry. First, he’d become a widower. It was a little over three years since Betty had… passed. His daughters assured him she was in Timeheart, some foreign, familiar, more real version of heaven.

He still missed her more than a limb some nights. 

Then Nita had left that fall for college, only in Connecticut (his daughter had gotten into Yale!) but she didn’t make the trip down as often as he would have liked. 

Dairine, luckily, had been on world more due to her junior year exams, but he knew that wasn’t going to last. She’d been studying on Wellakh for the better part of three years, and her area of focus was stars, so she was called all over the galaxy and further for her work.

On the flip side, Filif had moved in full time, just a few months after his initial visit ended. Harry was worried at first, thinking there was something wrong at home for him, but Filif explained that his species didn’t have strict or close familial bonds, and he had better professional and social relationships with the people on Earth. 

He’d worked at Harry’s shop full time until that past fall, he changed to part time when he enrolled in a few classes at the community college in town, and he was writing research papers about soil under a pseudonym in his ‘free time’. He had mastered his mochteroof of a human, updating it from the teen he had first designed. He now appeared as a man in his mid-twenties, still stocky and with the dark complexion of the first illusion he wore. 

In public, he went by Phillip, and he’d been toying with wizardries that allowed him to eat and retain nutrients from human foods. He would still root when he had time, of course, and sunbathing was a favorite activity of his. When he wasn’t busy, he was becoming a popular wizard on Earth, though, and his time was valuable.

Sker’ret was a common guest as well, and Harry thought half the time he might move in too. Since his parent had been recovered and reinstated as Master of the Crossings, he’d been visiting more. More stressed each time. Harry wanted to sit him down soon, see how he could help. He liked the bug and knew that Sker’ret had saved his daughters lives just as much as they’d saved his. A cousin of theirs was family of his as far as he was concerned. And even without that, any kid who showed up on his doorstop shaking received a place in his home. So many times, Sker had done just that.

Then there were the Earth regulars: Merhnaz, Ronan, Darryl, Lissa, Tom, Carl, a cat named Tualha, Roshaun, an Australian boy and a pair of Vietnamese twins he always forgot the names of, wizards he’d barely or never met. Even Annie had come to visit a few times—if he’d known all it would take to see his sister more was knowing about wizardry, he’d have done it years ago. He was glad he used Nita’s college fund, once she got a full ride to Yale and given her permission, to renovate the basement to a bunk room. 

He enjoyed his role as a wizardly bed and breakfast.

Not only did it keep him busy, but the visiting wizards would leave gifts or money, or take care of tasks he was putting off. They always wanted to give some sort of payment if they could, even if he never asked. Especially since he never asked, he suspected. He’d always try to talk them out of the money and gifts, but he wouldn’t say no to Lissa having a chat with his sink when it was acting up, or Darryl doubling himself to help move furniture around.

So when Carl showed up just as he and Filif were starting to make dinner, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Hi, Carl,” Harry said once he’d swung the door open, and gestured for the man to come to the kitchen. “What brings you by tonight? My girls haven’t been causing trouble, have they?”

Carl laughed, but Harry noticed it was laced with exhaustion. “Nothing new, don’t worry. I actually wanted to talk to you. Hey Fil, dai.”

Filif turned and waved a greeting with a spatula and a few miscellaneous fronds. 

“Of course. Are you staying for dinner?”

Carl shook his head. “I’ve got to get home to Tom, he’s got some young kids on his hands at the moment.”

“Yeah?” Harry rummaged around in the fridge, first for the egg carton, then for a couple cans of lemonade for him and Carl. 

“Yeah. Those kids, they’re actually what I’m here about.” Harry didn’t interrupt as Carl rubbed his face. “Something came up for them at home, they’re going to have to be relocated.”

“They’re always welcome to stay here for a while, you know that.” Harry stood to see where Filif was at with the pancakes, then he started slicing cheese for the omelets.

“It’s going to have to be a more permanent relocation, I’m afraid.” Harry stopped what he was doing to stare at him. “I know it’s a lot to ask Harry, but this would be the best option for them. You know about wizardry, you’ve raised two. And Nita, well, Mathilde, she’s the wizard, has a strong precognitive ability, and Nita would be the best to train and guide her with that.”

Harry sat down again, studying Carl, realizing how serious this situation was. “You’re asking me… to consider adopting them?”

“Yeah, or even just to care for them until we find a more permanent solution.”

“I’d have to talk to Nita and Dairine about it. And Fil of course.” He rubbed his chin. “I think it’d be possible, the shop’s been doing well, and wizards are usually independent.”

Carl opened his mouth but paused. “It’s a bit more than that. Mathilde, the wizard, she’s… well, in our perception of time she’s six.”

Harry’s brain short circuited. “What?”

“It’s a bit of a mess, really.” Carl paused to run his hand down his face. “As of two weeks ago, she was six and she entered her ordeal. Physically, she’s still six. But during her ordeal she was caught in something called a time-void. Based off the research I did last night, she aged about eight and a half years while in there.

Harry had no words, he just kept staring, slightly slack jawed. 

Carl continued, as if that wasn’t enough. “She passed out for a few days once she got home, but as soon as she woke up, she took her brother and ran away.”

“How old’s her brother?” At some point, Filif had come to sit with them, his eyes more grim than Harry had seen them for years.

“Three,” Carl said with a sigh.

Harry sucked in a sharp breath. Not only was a six-year-old a wizard—such a dangerous profession, he didn’t know how many times he’d almost lost his daughters—but a three-year-old was without a home. 

“I.” Harry had to bite back his words, stop himself from immediately agreeing to taking them in. “Do they have documents?”

“Not now, but there are a few wizards we know who could create them soon. They’re from Quebec though, they mainly speak French. Bastien has a little English, according to Mathilde, but she’s almost fluent, and she has the Speech so she can translate until he gets it.” Harry opened his mouth, but Carl had more to say. “And we’d help with finances, of course. Tom and I both have well-paying jobs, and this is a big favor we’re asking. You already do so much to make every wizard’s life easier.”

Harry took a drink before standing and finding work for his hands. It helps divert the excess energy so he could calm his mind a bit. 

“Can I have a few days to decide? I need to talk to Dairine and Nita, and it’s a big thing to think about.” Carl hummed in agreement. “They can stay here in the meantime, though, I know you and Tom are busy.”

“No, no. Tom doesn’t have any big deadlines coming up, and I have the weekend off. Just let me know what you decide?”

“Of course.” Harry followed him to the door and waved as he drove away. 

Filif was flipping the omelettes onto plates when Harry got back to the kitchen. They set up the table quietly. Harry could sense that Filif was giving him space to think. He briefly considered flavor combinations before deciding to suffer it, and he pulled a beer out of the fridge for himself and got a glass of water for Fil, turning away as the tree put on his human suit—it always felt invasive to watch no matter how much Filif assured him otherwise. He still had a very human-centric view of the world, something Dairine was none too shy about pointing out.

He checked his watch and realized Dairine should be home within the hour from lessons with Nelaid. He kept thinking, ate some of his omelette. 

“What do you think, Fil?” 

Filif looked up, almost like he was surprised to be asked. “It’s up to you, isn’t it?”

Harry huffed a laugh. “Well, in the end, yes, but you live here, this will affect you. And I trust your opinion.”

Filif blinked, two eyes acting for a hundred-odd berries, and Harry realized he was shocked. That Filif still considered himself a guest. Harry looked straight at him, not seeing them but knowing his berries were all on him in return. “Filif, of course I’m asking you. You’re basically a son to me at this point. You’re family.”

The tree in a human suit smiled and stood, walking around the table to pull Harry into a hug, one he returned. After a moment, they both sat back down, and Harry watched Filif expectantly. 

“Well, the Knowledge tells me that latency in your species normally doesn’t begin until one is between twelve and fourteen years old. Six is young in comparison. And she’s bringing her brother, who is younger still.”

“That seems to be the gist of it.” Harry took a bite of his food, using the moment to think. He decided not to ask about latency, or what an ordeal really entailed. “It’s so young. Too young. She should be too young for the Powers to offer this.”

He thought the same when he learned that Dairine had taken to planet hopping, when Kit and Nita were saving Long Island, when he met Darryl. They were kids. This girl, Mathilde, she was a kid. Harry had his streaks of anger, and he felt it welling in him.

“They must have needed her.” Filif said. Harry took a breath to calm himself.

A wave washed over him of longing, of missing Betty, of wanting her there to help him raise these two new children. Because he was almost certain he’d be adopting him. He remembered the way she looked when she told him she was pregnant that first time. [I wish you were here], Harry thought, [Look how big our family’s getting.]

“I think I’d prefer knowing she was safe, her brother too,” Harry said.

“I thought you would,” Filif said. “And I’m always happy to have more wizards around. I’m still not completely used to living on a sevarfrith planet.”

Harry nodded, already starting a checklist in his mind on how to make this happen. Step one:

“I guess I’d better call Nita.”

~

Juanita L. Callahan rolled her eyes as her girlfriend considered then promptly discarded yet another top and resumed digging through her half-emptied closet. Half emptied meaning, of course, that more of Kit’s clothing was magically suspended at various points in the room rather than folded neatly like it was a scant twenty minutes ago. 

“Do you think he knows somehow?”

“No.”

“Okay but what if he does.”

Nita had known Kit long enough to know that when her anxiety was being that… loud was a good word—it was better to let her air all the worst-case scenarios before trying to calm her down. On one memorable occasion, Nita had impulsively slipped into her mind to help unravel things that way. Instead, she’d gotten caught in the spiral as well. That experience ended with the two of them shaking on the couch, neither of them able to move enough even to make tea or get a blanket.

Another couple shirts were flung into the air. Kit looked around with a frown.

“Is my Lumineers shirt out here?” Kit raked her hair away from her face. She was growing it out and still wasn’t quite used to the way it fell into her eyes.

“You wore it earlier this week, we haven’t done laundry since.”

“Damn.” Kit turned back to her closet. “I just… I can’t be too feminine, because, like, he probably doesn’t know, yeah? But what if he does and I look too masculine? He normally doesn’t have us for dinner Thursdays though, so it could be about this. What else could have happened?”

And that hit the core of Nita’s nerves. She doubted her dad knew Kit was trans, and even if he’d somehow found out—unlikely since Kit had only told her and Carmela—she didn’t think he would go about bringing it up like this.

Which left an entire universe, and several neighboring ones, of possibilities.

The world hadn’t ended yet, Nita was fairly sure of that, so that eliminated some of the worse potentialities. And it was coming from her dad, not Tom or Carl, so world-ending was probably not the concern.

Maybe something Dairine did? Who knew with her.

Nita looked up at Kit’s soft groan and decided enough was enough.

“Okay.” Nita rolled off the bed and stood, ducking around the floating clothing until she was able to pull out a simple striped sweater from Kit’s shelf. “This and your jeans.” She turned through the room until she spotted the hoodie she was looking for. “And I’m going to borrow this.”

Kit laughed, her anxiety seemingly dispelled for the moment. Nita pecked a quick kiss on her cheek and left the room for Kit to get ready. 

She realized she didn’t know if this actually was a dinner, her dad had just asked them to come by. Nita’s stomach grumbled. She frowned and looked through the pantry for something to bring. There was a bag of pita chips and remembered the hummus she’d brought home from her job at the café earlier that week.

Perfect.

She had just finished sliding the snacks and a couple cans of sparkling water into her claudication pocket (she knew both their other roommates were out for the evening) when Kit stepped out of her room.

“You look lovely,” Nita said. She knew Kit needed that reassurance occasionally. Nita was also consistently taken aback by her girlfriend. She was beautiful and smart and Nita’s best friend and wizarding partner. She didn’t know how she’d gotten so lucky.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Kit said in a haughty tone, but when she was close enough, she swooped in to peck Nita on her cheek. It was something she’d started doing once she’d come out, and Nita was not complaining.

Not saying anything else, they stepped out of their dorm and started walking along the streets towards the green belt that had a few spots secluded enough to transit from. 

There was a spot they’d used enough for this exact jump that the aura of the space hummed when they stepped into it, already buzzing with the energy of a spell not yet spoken. But they spoke it, Nita and Kit’s voices mingling and racing like nothing had changed from their first spell together.

Nita tried not to think of everything that had sometimes, but in that moment she was content with where every change had led her.

The couple stepped into the familiar growth tucked in the back of Nita’s yard. They walked through the wild part to the contained landscaping Nita’s dad had put so much work into. 

She led them through the screen door and into the kitchen, seeing her dad standing at the sink doing the dishes. Filif, in his mochteroof, was sitting at the table with a textbook in front of him, and Dairine was nowhere to be seen.

Her father turned when he heard the door open. “Nita! Kit!” He walked over to them and pulled Nita into a hug, nodding at Kit’s usual, “Hi, Mr. Callahan.”

“Have you eaten?” He said, already turning to rummage through the fridge but Nita interrupted him.

“Don’t worry Daddy, I brought us some snacks.”

[That’s news to me,] Kit said into her head, and she had to smother a smirk, not quick enough though.

“No telepathy at the dinner table, it’s rude,” Dairine said as she waltzed into the kitchen. She was wearing a bizarre combination of Earth and Wellakhit clothing: a Darth Vader t-shirt with the pants befitting a friend of the Wellakhit royals, loose trousers fitted around her ankles in a shimmery blue fabric. Nita was almost jealous, they looked comfortable. Dairine was also wearing her hair in the Wellakh style, pulled back to the nape of her neck (though with a scrunchie instead of a ribbon) and two long locks left free to frame her face. 

In fact, her sister’s hair had grown longer, mimicking the Wellakhit fashion in more than just the way it was styled, and… “Are you taller?” Nita squawked.

Dairine and Kit both snorted. “I should hope so,” she said. “Gravity on Wellakh isn’t as strong as it is here, it’s like having another growth spurt.”

“You’re still a squirt,” Kit said, moving to ruffle her hair but Dairine dodged in time. 

“And please tell me you didn’t wear that,” Nita eyed the Vader shirt with disdain, “when you were acting as an ambassador to a foreign planet.”

Dairine rolled her eyes, grabbing a seat at the table, watching the other two do the same. “Of course not.”

“I wouldn’t have let her leave like that,” their dad said, as he too grabbed a chair, placing a pack of cookies in the middle of the table. “Miril just came a month ago to make sure I knew how to properly care for the new clothes. I know it’s important.”

“Miril came here?” Nita asked, eyes widening. She didn’t think royalty often made house calls, even if their families were close.

“Yes. In fact,” Harry turned to face his oldest daughter. “I’ve seen her more recently than I’ve seen you.”

Nita flushed at that, and she could feel a wave of guilt from Kit next to her. She gulped. “Sorry, Daddy.”

His strict face cracked. “I know you do your best honey.”

“Didn’t you say something about snacks?” Dairine said, interrupting the moment. 

Nita rolled her eyes but obligingly pulled the chips and hummus from her other space pocket, placing them next to the cookies. She got out the sparkling waters as well, passing one to Kit and keeping the other for herself. 

Filif, reminding Nita he was there since he’d been quiet this whole time, closed his text book and moved to slide it back into his backpack. 

“Do you mind if I slip into something more comfortable before we begin?” He was already moving, pulling the tab that allowed the mochteroof to fall off his form, leaving him as the Christmas tree Nita knew and loved. 

“Of course,” Nita’s dad said. “Unfortunately,” here he looked at Nita and Kit, “I didn’t just call you down here to catch up.”

Kit tensed beside Nita, so she grabbed her hand, squeezing it in reassurance. “We were wondering about that,” she said.

Filif moved a chair so he could stand nearer to the table, Nita’s dad waiting patiently until he was ready.

“Carl visited earlier,” he finally said.

Dairine sat bolt upright. “Is everything okay?”

“Nothing dire, don’t worry,” their dad said. “There’s just a young wizard and her brother that need relocating.” Nita felt herself visibly relax, though she still held on to Kit’s hand. “Carl was wondering if I’d be willing to adopt them.”

That was… not at all what Nita had been expecting and judging by the quick glances she threw at Kit and Dairine they were just as shocked as she was. 

“Okay,” Nita said, maybe sounding a touch winded. “Um, I guess, how old are they? What are their names?”

“Are you really going to adopt two more kids?” Dairine said, clearly doing less to mask her shock than her sister.

“Their names are Mathilde and Bastien. From what Carl said, age is a bit tricky with Mathilde, she’s the wizard, something about her ordeal? Depending on how you look at it, she’s either six or around fifteen. Bastien is younger, he’s three.” 

“Shit,” Dairine said.

“Language,” was her dad’s immediate response. Nita and Kit shared a wave of humor. Dairine had taken to swearing lately, much to their dad’s chagrin. 

He continued without more of a segue. “I wanted to talk to you three about what you think. It would be a big shift, and I think it should be a family decision.” Nita’s dad didn’t need to be a wizard to catch Kit’s surprise at that, apparently, because he addressed it immediately. “Yes, you too Kit. You and Nita are… close, and unless you think that will change soon?” Kit shook her head vigorously in denial, and Nita felt a blush bloom on her cheeks. “Okay then, I’d like to hear your input too.”

At this he looked at everyone expectantly, though Nita suspected that he and Filif had discussed the situation already. 

She took a moment to consider her thoughts. It would be weird, definitely, for her dad to be raising two more kids. She wasn’t really around, and Dairine only had about a year and a half before she was headed off to college as well. She wouldn’t be around at all to help. But they were so young, and wizards fared so much better when they had healthy home environments. Her dad had already converted the basement into a wizard friendly area, and he seemed to take the wizardly titles of “cousin” seriously. 

“Can we afford it?” Nita asked. Her part-time job at the café didn’t bring in much money, just enough to cover her own day-to-day costs. And between wizardry and school, she didn’t think she’d be able to pick up any extra hours.

“Carl said he and Tom could help with that. Kind of like how the state provides a stipend for kids in foster care.”

“Do you want to do this?”

Dairine’s voice was strangely pensive. She was looking at her dad, head tilted slightly to the side, her face not betraying any of her thoughts.

Their dad nodded, ever so slightly. “I don’t like the idea of turning kids away, especially when they’re so young. It seems like Mathilde will need a lot of support, and I like to think I did pretty well with you girls.”

And that was where the unspoken question came in. The one that weighed at the edges of everyone’s minds. Nita squeezed her Kit’s hand briefly, drawing strength from her partner.

“Daddy…” She paused to steady her breathing. “Can you do this alone?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dairine tense. Kit squeezed her hand and kept the pressure there, holding her in the moment. Still, these three years later, grief of her mother’s death could hit like a bus in times like this.

Her dad gulped and took a careful breath. “I think so. And I won’t really be alone. Fil is here, and Sker’ret has been coming around more and more. Dairine will be here for a while longer, definitely long enough for this situation to settle into our lives. You know Tom and Carl will help as much as they can, and I know you two aren’t here often,” he looked at Nita and Kit, “but you can come down if we really need the help, right?” They both nodded. “Anyways, Carl mentioned something about wanting you to mentor Mathilde, since she has a strong precognitive ability.”

“Oh,” Nita said. She hadn’t really thought of herself being a mentor yet.

“You’ll do great with it,” Kit said, no hesitation in her voice. 

“Definitely,” Filif added.

“I think you should do it,” Dairine said. Everyone looked at her, and Nita didn’t think she was able to mask her surprise quickly enough. Dairine had never been one to embrace change. “What? They need help, and Tom and Carl seem to think we’re the best people to do it.”

“I’m onboard as well,” Kit said. “I’d like to help as much as possible, and I’ve never had the chance for younger siblings. Other than the runt here.” Kit smiled and Dairine narrowed her eyes at her. Nita didn’t think she’d ever outgrow that nickname, even as she’d inherited their mom’s willowy height that was exaggerated by so much time on a planet with lighter gravity.

Nita’s dad looked to her next, but she was already nodding. “I’ll be able to use mentoring her as an excuse to visit more. And she’s a cousin, after all.”

He nodded, a smile growing on his face. “Okay. I’ll go over to Tom and Carl’s tomorrow, iron out the details and meet the kids.”

And that was that.

~

Nita and Kit, without permission from her dad, decided to miss class the next day, sending an email to all their professors, explaining the family emergency with minimal detail. Nita’s dad had texted her that morning, saying that he and Tom were going shopping for things that the kids would need in the immediate future. So, her and Kit were going to pop down and prep Nita’s old room for them.

Filif greeted them as they walked through the back door, in his mochteroof to better navigate the keyboard of his laptop. 

“Morning Fil,” Nita said, and Kit threw a wave over her shoulder as she dug around in the fridge, emerging moments later with the orange juice. Nita would have rolled her eyes, but they’d skipped breakfast, so she got out the eggs instead. Oh, there were tomatoes and mozzarella too, that was perfect.

Kit took the food from her, flipping on a burner. “Sit down, Neets. I know you have that blog post due tonight, might as well get it done before we try our hands at interior decorating. Sunny side up?”

Nita rolled her eyes a bit but hummed in agreement. “Is there any rye bread?”

“There’s some in the cabinet,” Filif said, looking away from his laptop. “Do you need any help, Kit?”

“Nope, I’ve got it. Have you eaten, though?”

“I had a bit of time in my plot this morning, but an egg sounds delicious.”

Kit pulled out the cutting board and began to cube the tomatoes. “Breakfast for three coming right up.”

Nita watched her for a moment, allowing the distraction while she pulled out her notes and laptop. She may have watched a moment longer than she could write off, but Kit was growing her hair out and it was just starting to brush the bottom of her ears. Nita found it far too cute to be fair. 

She was halfway through typing in her password when she remembered, “Oh, hey, Kit, don’t forget the—”

Kit held up the bag the rye was in without turning around, and Nita smiled.

Breakfast was a quick affair, and Filif and Kit cleaned up after while Nita finished her homework. When all was said and done, the three of them were in Nita’s room before even an hour had passed. This is, of course, when they realized that none of them knew where to start.

“Okay, so…” Nita trailed off.

“We should paint the room, yeah?” Kit said, looking at Nita for confirmation. Great as Filif was, he was there to help with the wizardry and physical side of things, he didn’t know anything about human infants.

Nita looked around her room, painted a dark blue with a few constellations stenciled on. “Yeah,” she said, though she knew it’d be sad to see it go. “We should do something lighter for a kids’ room.”

“Maybe green?” Filif said.

“A pea green would be perfect!” Nita said. She bit her lip as she thought of the best way to divvy up tasks. “Do you two want to go buy the primer, paint, tape, and paintbrushes, and I can sort through things to see what I want to keep?”

“Perfect,” Kit said. “I have some money saved up, so this part can be on me.” Kit kissed Nita quickly, cutting off her objections. “We’ll be back soon!”

With that, Nita was left alone to her work.

She started in her wardrobe, and for the first drawer she took her time sorting. Then, once she realized how much time that was taking, she decided to throw anything she even thought about keeping into her pup tent and left everything else to be repurposed.

She was even able to compartmentalize her emotions enough to be done by the time, nearly two hours later, Kit and Filif got back.

“Weren’t you just going to grab some paint and supplies?” She asked as they walked in, quickly seeing that in addition to four bags they also carried a cardboard box. She let her eyebrows rise in amusement.

“That was the original plan,” Kit said, her voice taking on a dry tone.

“Kit saw a bookstore on the way,” Filif said. He took off his mochteroof and set it to the side, now able to unpack the bags simultaneously.

Nita walked over to rifle through the box, which she now saw was filled with books for toddlers and low-grade chapter books, as well as a few books on meteorology and symbolism. Kit smiled a little sheepishly. “I figured she’d be at a higher reading level, but I wasn’t really sure what kind of thing she’d like.”

Nita remembered again how smart her girlfriend was. Then the three of them sat down to make a game plan. It was easy enough to decide to paint first, and between the three of them and Filif’s ability to wield many brushes at once, they made quick work of that. While each coat dried, they ransacked the dilapidated shed in the backyard for furniture and decoration materials.

After the second coat of color was on, Kit and Nita turned their attention to restructuring the furniture and wood already in the room to better suit the present needs. They made a set of shelves to hand around the room for books and knickknacks, which Filif immediately began to paint with a light stain, and Kit and Nita attacked the problem of transforming Nita’s full bed into two twins, one with rails on the side.

They quickly learned that splitting a mattress in half with magic was in neither of their specialties.

After that disaster, they decided to take a breather, and a break for lunch. Filif wasn’t using magic nearly as much as them, he’d just started to paint strands of ivy around the window, so he opted to keep working.

They threw fish sticks in the oven, nothing special but very easy, and once they sat down, Nita pulled out her manual to message Tom.

N: No need to get furniture, we’ve got that covered, but we will need two twin mattresses

It only took a minute or two for Tom to respond.

T: I’ll let Harry know.

T: Do we need to stop for groceries? 

Nita hummed, and stood to rummage through the cabinets. They weren’t particularly low on food, but Nita knew enough about young kids to know that they needed to eat often to grow, and that they could be picky.

N: I’d say yes.

T: Okay, in that case we should be back in a few hours. Dai.

The timer for the fish sticks went off, and that was that.

~

Harry can’t say he was expecting Nita and Kit to be at the house when he got home with Tom, Mathilde, and Bastien in tow, but he wasn’t necessarily surprised. 

“Aren’t the two of you supposed to be in class today?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. He nodded to Tom to set the first load of bags on the couch. And he glanced at the kids as Bastien looked around with wide eyes, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he was ready to run around, and Mathilde quietly taking everything in with eyes that, Harry suspected, saw more than just the physical things around them. 

“Called out for a family emergency,” Kit said. Harry noticed he was using the Speech, probably so Mathilde and Bastien didn’t feel left out. That was helpful. He’d had to have Tom and Mathilde translating for him all day. Harry knew he’d need to help Bastien with English, he was getting close to being old enough for pre-school, and Harry didn’t want to keep such a bubbly kid from making friends.

“We figured you might need an extra set of hands around for a few days,” Nita added. She turned her attention to where Mathilde and Bastien were still standing in the doorway. “I’m Nita, and this is Kit. We’re dating.”

Harry walked over and gave her a half hug and kissed her forehead. “Is Fil around? I figured we could give the kids a quick tour, and apparently Carl’s coming around for dinner, so it’ll be a group affair.”

“And Dair?” Nita asked.

“Dairine’s my other daughter,” Harry said to the kids. “I told you some about her earlier.” He turned his attention back to Nita, letting Tom translate for him. “She’ll be here, said she’d be home by five.”

“Wellakh?” 

“No, for once. She has an after-school choir practice. The concert’s next week if you can make it down.”

“I’ll check my schedule.” Nita turned to the kids. “Want to come in? Kit just went upstairs to grab Fil, we can give you a tour once they’re back.”

Mathilde didn’t say much, just came in and carefully took off her shoes, but Bastien began to chatter away at Nita. From what Harry could make out from only hearing one half of the conversation, it was about likes and dislikes, and trains at one point. 

Filif and Kit came back down. Harry was relieved to see that Filif was in his mochteroof. He thought that a walking and talking tree might be a bit much for day one. 

The tour wasn’t a long one, as their house wasn’t too large. Filif’s pup tent entrance had been covered with a curtain and Harry hoped that would be enough to keep the kids from accidentally stumbling into what Harry was told was a pocket dimension. He was pretty amazed at all Kit and Nita had done with her old room to get it ready. It looked like a proper nursery.

Understandably, they spent the most time in the basement. There wasn’t really much down there, but once Bastien heard it was a place for wizards to stay over night if they needed to, he had endless questions.

It was there, sitting among the bunks in a room lit by magical (literally) fairy lights that Harry saw Nita and Mathilde look at each other. He and Kit were busy, trying to answer Bastien’s questions, and Tom had gone upstairs with Fil to make a pot of coffee. Nita and Mathilde didn’t seem to be talking, but he saw them staring at one another with twin expressions. Shock and awe, and it was the first time Harry saw Mathilde smile like that, as if things were taken care of. That there wasn’t anything to worry about.

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many ideas for this au and I love young wizards so much, so this won't be the last you here of me :)
> 
> Kudos/comment if you want!


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